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Back on track, Spider-Man musical set to open this fall

Although the Spider-Man film franchise has hit a snag, it looks like the wall-crawler’s $52-million musical may at last be back on track — if still behind schedule.

The New York Post reports that Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the most expensive show in Broadway history, is set to open this fall, months past its original date of March.

The ambitious musical, directed by The Lion King‘s Julie Taymor and scored by Bono and the Edge, was derailed in August by “cash-flow obstacles” that led producers to halt production while they sought more money for a budget that had ballooned from $35 million. In November, Bono’s longtime business partner Michael Cohl was brought onboard to put the show back on track.

According to the Post’s Michael Riedel, Disney is providing “a chunk” of the financing.

Spider-Man will cost about $1 million a week to produce — hundreds of thousands of dollars more than elaborate shows like Mary Poppins and West Side Story — and require the 1,700-seat Hilton Theatre to sell out for every show for four years just to break even.

Relative newcomer Reeve Carney has been cast in the lead, while Evan Rachel Wood and Alan Cumming will play Mary Jane and Green Goblin.

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DamianWayne

this is seriously the absolute worst comic-related, perhaps even just general, idea ever. spider-man… musical? like, with singing and all? are you f**king kidding me!!!!?? it was a ridiculous idea when first announced, nay, conceived even, and is even more ridiculous that people actually think that it is somehow viable and are actually going through with it. i mean really, my faith in humanity is waning enough as it is.

I think the most important phrase in this article is “…and require the 1,700-seat Hilton Theatre to sell out for every show for four years just to break even.” I can’t believe that the people pouring money in this thing are thinking rationally at this point. Under normal circumstances, they would have closed up shop- the odds of selling out seven shows a week for four years are nearly impossible, even with major corporate backing. (As Disney should know from “Tarzan,” and “The Little Mermaid.”) This is really beginning to resemble Moby-Dick in terms of single-minded obsession. What’s especially ridiculous is that, generally, flops have the chance to recoup some of their investments through revivals, bus and truck tours, community theater rights, etc- how on earth can that even happen with a production as technical as this one? Somebody should have thought a moment the first time anyone proposed that a it was a good idea to have the main character of a Broadway musical who wears a mouth-covering mask….

(And incidentally, I’m no one of those people who bashes the very “idea” of a comics based musical- “Annie,” You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” and “Lil’ Abner” were all hits. Even “It’s a Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman” was actually pretty good for its time, despite the misforune of opening in the middle of “Batman”‘s first season. But the whole story of this musical is one of major corporate calculation 9and miscalculation)- there isn’t an ounce of actual art or joy going into this.